


Spellbreaker

by jedishampoo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M, UKUS, ukxus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedishampoo/pseuds/jedishampoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>UK/US (Arthur/Alfred Superhero!AU).  “You’ve gone too far, Doctor Stonehenge,” said Citizen Science.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spellbreaker

**Title: Spellbreaker**  
 **Author:** jedishampoo  
 **Pairing:** UK/US (Arthur/Alfred Superhero!AU)  
 **Rating/Warnings:** R-l8, smut, language, captivity  
 **Summary:** “You’ve gone too far, Doctor Stonehenge,” said Citizen Science.  
 **Author’s Notes:** Supervillain!Arthur / Superhero!Alfred, requested by anon on [my tumblr](http://jedishampoo.tumblr.com/). What an awesome prompt that was, so thank you, anon (all of the prompts I got were awesome; this is just the first one used so far). Anyway, I played with the characterizations a bit and tried to go a little darker but it's still my attempt at some comic-book angst and cheese and smut. Thanks to my beta whymzycal for her assistance and tough love!  
  
  
  
 **Spellbreaker**  
  
  
Alfred was worried. Arthur hadn’t eaten anything, or even drunk any water, in over twenty-four hours. He just lay there, in the spare bedroom of Alfred’s house-slash-secret base, unmoving. He barely seemed to breathe, as though too dejected to bother.  
  
He wouldn’t even lie down on the narrow bed pushed up against the wall. He just sort of curled, barefoot and uncovered, on the hardwood floor. His position stretched the … the chains attached to his wrist-cuffs to their most uncomfortable limit -- God, Alfred hated using the cuffs, hated chaining Arthur to the wall like a … well, like a slave. But what choice did he have, after all? Taking Arthur to the authorities would risk exposing them both.  
  
 _Technology Versus Magic: The Final Showdown_ was over, and Citizen Science was the clear winner.  
  
Alfred stood in the open door, shuffling in his socks, looking at Arthur’s still, shadowed form in the dark room. He couldn’t bring himself to turn on the light.  
  
“Um. Can I get you some water or anything, Arthur? You -- you’ve got to be thirsty.”  
  
“Fuck off, Alfred,” Arthur whispered, without any discernable heat or sharp edges behind the words. He didn’t seem to care if Alfred even heard him.  
  
“You have to drink sometime, dude. Or get up. Go to the bathroom. Or ... something. I’ll be back later. I’m sorry, Arthur,” Alfred said. Softly he shut the door and softly he walked the hall and down the stairs back to his laboratory.  
  
He wasn’t even sure what he was apologizing for by that point. For idolizing Arthur in the first place, for being his acolyte, his partner? For not being those things anymore, for wanting to save him, to be nothing but his friend? For winning?  
  
“Science can do anything,” Alfred had said once, not long before everything had hit the fan.  
  
Arthur had sniffed and hunched over his desk, intent on the book spread open in the small circle of light from his overhead lamp. Reading glasses perched on his nose, and Alfred had thought they were cute.  
  
“Science is perfectly useful in a crunch,” Arthur said. He licked his finger to turn a page. Alfred would never have licked a finger that had touched one of those awful old books. That one looked like it had been dug out of a grave. “But it cannot hold a candle to enhanced magical power such as I possess.”  
  
Arthur’s _superb_ power, as he called it -- always ignoring the possibility that others could have those, too.  
  
“You keep forgetting. Science is my superpower,” Alfred said.  
  
“You know perfectly well that my studies have not yet determined that,” Arthur said, turning to look at Alfred.  
  
He was sitting on the couch watching TV, sort of. Mostly he was watching Arthur. Arthur was fascinating, even sitting in his desk chair _hmmm_ ing and _hmph_ ing and _ahhh_ ing at his horrible book. His spiky blond hair was all dusty and his khakis were loose, and when he bent over to read, his chair would creak and his shirt would inch up. One by one the knobs of his spine would be exposed through the chair posts.  
  
Alfred was very glad that Arthur couldn’t read minds, even as powerful as he was.  
  
Still, sometimes he would swear that Arthur knew. Alfred would be staring at Arthur’s back and thinking thoughts and suddenly Arthur would turn, halting his explanation of whatever ultra-covert attack plan he’d just devised. His eyebrows would be all downturned and angry but after a second or two they’d ease up, slowly, along with the corners of his lips, and he’d turn all kinds of funny pinks and Alfred would laugh. _Ha ha_ , he’d say. _Sorry, dude, I was just thinking that I should design a (insert appropriate and pertinent name here) Project to make this attack easier,_ and Arthur would say, _Perhaps you should_ , and then, of course, Alfred would actually have to do it. It was lucky he could invent anything.  
  
Alfred knew he probably shouldn’t look at his mentor -- his friend -- his partner -- that way. He’d given up a very promising scholarship program at MIT to study under the great underground crime-fighter, Doctor Stonehenge. He was extra-lucky to have earned a place as his equal.  
  
Almost his equal. “I know what I know, and I know that nobody else can do what I do,” Alfred said. “Unless they’re hiding like us, anyway. That’s why you keep me around as your sidekick, right?”  
  
“Hmm,” Arthur said, and his cheeks did that blushing thing they always did. He’d gone back to reading his book of spells or whatever, trailing his dusty finger along the sentences and licking it instead of licking Alfred, and Alfred had watched the pink tips of Arthur’s ears and waited and waited for Arthur to say something like, _No, I keep you around because we are a fantastic team_. He never had.  
  
Too soon, it seemed, it was three days -- over seventy-four hours -- that Arthur still hadn’t gotten up. He wouldn’t even answer when Alfred offered water, food, a walk. Alfred could see Arthur’s breathing by then, harsh as it was, could hear the rattling of air in Arthur’s lungs. Alfred couldn’t bear to watch it for long, and so he didn’t. If it came down to the wire, he could take more drastic measures.  
  
So in the meantime he sat in his laboratory in front of his computer, working on the design for a new project. It might have been a reversing gun, but he didn’t allow himself to think too hard about it. He had a handwritten list of the parts he’d need to build a prototype of Project Anonymous, as he called it:  
  
 _titanium alloy, 42 ounces  
nega-digium crystal for catalyst (make from scratch?)  
micropistons (2) _  
  
\--and so on, and he looked back and forth from the computer CAD design to the list, double-checking. The handwritten list he could carry around the lab with him, to make notes on it as he worked. He was a little ashamed of using it because he was a science genius, after all, and paper hadn’t been science for at least a thousand years. It was like the newspaper; he still received a printed paper on his doorstep every day. Mr. Alfred Jones, mild-mannered accountant, was a loyal subscriber. He’d gotten the newspaper habit from Arthur, who never read anything on a computer if he could help it.  
  
It was newspapers that had told Alfred what was happening both times. The worst times.  
  
Alfred was making another handwritten note _(4moz isomenadron extract)_ when he heard a thump, like a body hitting a wood floor. He jumped out of his chair and his pencil went flying, but he didn’t care because he lived alone and the only other person there was Arthur.  
  
He’d known Arthur would try to escape. He never should have been lulled into a false sense of security by Arthur’s apparent helplessness and he never should have felt sorry for him and removed the cuffs and chains. And so he ran out the door and down the hall and thumped up the stairs and swung himself ‘round the corner at the top by holding the banister and--  
  
It was Arthur. He was stretched out face-down on the floor, half out of his room (had Alfred forgotten to lock the door?) and half in the hall. Alfred slid to a stop by Arthur’s head and bent down to grab his wrist. His skin was so dry it seemed it might crumble in Alfred’s fingers.  
  
“What the hell are you doing, Arthur?”  
  
“Wmhuhhh,” Arthur mumbled.  
  
Alfred turned him over. Given the state of Arthur’s arm, he was only half-shocked to see how ghostly Arthur’s face looked in the hallway’s fluorescent light. His lips -- his soft lips were cracked and white. “What? Have you decided to talk to me?”  
  
“Wamuh,” Arthur rasped. Then, “Water. Plsss.”  
  
Alfred sighed. “I left a bottle in your room. On the nightstand,” he said. He slid an arm under Arthur’s chest and lifted him to his feet. Arthur’s arm flopped as he tried to hang onto Alfred’s shoulder, knocking off Alfred’s glasses. They fell to the floor and made a tinkling noise as one of the lenses shattered.  
  
“Shit,” Alfred said, and “oomph,” as he dragged Arthur back into the room and over to the bed. He snatched the bottled water off the nightstand and twisted off the cap.  
  
Arthur’s hands shook as he tried to take the bottle, and Alfred held it to Arthur’s lips. Arthur took a sip, then another.  
  
“Slow,” Alfred said.  
  
Arthur managed a few more sips. He coughed. “I always liked you better without them,” he rasped.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Your glasses.” The water seemed to have revived Arthur somewhat; he took the bottle from Alfred’s hand and drank some on his own.  
  
Alfred had never known that. He felt his face warm, then his chest. He wanted to take a step forward, get closer, see if drinking the water had helped Arthur’s lips. Instead he took a step back. “I’ll have to repair ‘em. They’re my disguise.”  
  
“You don’t need a disguise if you have power,” Arthur said, with what looked nearly like a smile.  
  
Alfred coughed.  
  
Arthur’s smile vanished. He dropped his gaze from Alfred’s face and hung his head, staring at his feet. The bottle of water slipped from his fingers to tumble to the floor, where it rolled across the room, splashing water all the way.  
  
“Go away, Alfred,” Arthur said. He fell sideways onto the bed and lay there, unmoving again, eyes open and looking at nothing.  
  
“D’you want some food? I can heat up a burger or--”  
  
“Fuck off, Alfred,” Arthur said, as inflectionless as he had that second day of his imprison-- his stay here.  
  
“Fine. Fine!” Alfred said. He picked up his glasses and swished the pieces of broken lens out the door with his foot. Then he stomped out and shut the door behind him. He made sure to lock it.  
  
Arthur wouldn’t need to stumble about the place. He had water if he would bother to retrieve it. He had an intercom if he wanted food. What he didn’t have was--  
  
“Let me show you my new power,” Arthur had said that time, smiling.  
  
They’d been at the dockside warehouse of Antonio “Tha Horra” Carriedo, and Alfred had devised Project Chrism Detector (the place was full of chrism, a killer drug made and sold by a killer) and Project Stealth-Slicer to help them get inside. The problem was, the place had been surrounded by Carriedo’s thugs; the price of chrism was astronomical, and there’d been hundreds of guards. Not even Citizen Science’s weapons could have stunned them all.  
  
Alfred tried not to kill unless it was absolutely necessary. That was one reason why he and Arthur worked together so well; Doctor Stonehenge thought that killing one’s opponents was clumsy and uncouth, especially when his magic could paralyze them or make their own limbs walk or drive them to the nearest police station, where they’d be unable to speak. The note in Arthur’s elegant handwriting pinned to their clothing would say everything that needed to be said.  
  
But this time there were just too many men. It was all going to hell in a flame-licking hurry because the police had somehow found out about this place, hundreds of them in dozens of cars, and the bullets were flying and policemen were dying. With a calm smile Arthur stepped out from behind their wall and into the melee.  
  
“Watch, Alfred!” Arthur said. Alfred watched Arthur’s slim form and long black cloak and tall hat, all untouched by the flying bullets, and watched his arms as he lifted them and said something -- it sounded like _Emperior mortus. Go!_  
  
And they were there, misting up from the ground, dropping from the sky, stepping out from behind stray atoms to appear out of thin air: pale, ragged forms, soldiers wearing what looked like Civil War stage clothing, and knights riding skeletal horses and wearing armor that somehow caught the beams of arc-sodium light, gleaming through mud and rust and old blood -- _how far had they come to be here?_ And old people, bony, ragged ones Alfred could almost see right through -- horrible creatures, all of them. They attacked and the sound of screams bounced from concrete wall to concrete wall throughout the entire dockside district. Carriedo’s thugs screamed because they were being mauled by the undead, and the policemen screamed from fear and surprise.  
  
Alfred lost his breath as the air around him went all blurry and sparkly, and then Arthur was behind him, holding him up, talking over his shoulder in a voice that smiled.  
  
“I promise they’re all gone. They’re all home again, silly goose. You can open your eyes now,” he’d said.  
  
“Please. Don’t. Please promise me you won’t do it again,” Alfred had said, crying and not ashamed of it. People died and it wasn’t always a good thing, but it was inevitable and final, and should stay that way.  
  
Obviously, Ar-- Doctor Stonehenge -- hadn’t agreed. He hadn’t stopped. He could knock witnesses out with a flick of his slender wrist, after all. Make them think they’d dreamed everything.  
  
And Arthur was going on more than four days of captivity-- nearly a hundred hours without food or leaving the room -- when he first used the intercom.  
  
“I need to use your phone,” his cracked voice slurred through the staticky, old-fashioned speaker.  
  
“Will you promise to eat?” Alfred asked. He set down his Coke cup. His straw was all chewed at the top.  
  
“You can’t order me around,” Arthur said.  
  
“I’m trying to save you,” Alfred told him.  
  
“Fuck you, Alfred.”  
  
“Fine, Arthur,” Alfred said, getting used to hearing it. He sipped his Coke, then went back to fiddling with Project Anonymous. It was taking shape. Alfred brushed some imaginary dust from its barrel and Arthur spoke again, this time in a whisper.  
  
“We were … a good team. Why did you leave me?”  
  
“Who left who, Arthur?” Alfred said. He wanted to hug himself, or punch something.  
  
“It’s whom. Who left whom, Alfred.” Arthur’s prim British accent was audible, neat, even as his voice was scratchy with disuse and self-enforced thirst.  
  
They’d sort of left each other. They’d argued, of course, about the necromancy, which Arthur kept learning, refusing to promise never to do it again. It was addictive power, like a drug, worse than chrism and more deadly. And they’d argued even worse about one of Alfred’s pet projects -- a human project, that time.  
  
They captured Diamond Lovino, a notorious murderer for the mob. But Arthur didn’t want to send him to the police: he wanted to kill him.  
  
“He’ll never be prosecuted. His superior’s lawyers will only have him acquitted,” Arthur argued.  
  
“Don’t let ‘im kill me! I promise to go straight.”  
  
“No, Arthur.”  
  
“He’s a murderer, many times over. He deserves our personal justice, which will never be given him in your flawed American system.”  
  
“No, Arthur,” Alfred repeated, stung. Arthur had always been a staunch supporter of his adopted home, no matter where he’d come from. But he’d changed lately. Even his magic had changed -- how it felt to Alfred when Arthur used it. How it looked.  
  
Lovino wasn’t the only one terrified by Arthur’s power at that very moment. The dark magic turned Arthur’s irises black instead of the deeper green his old magic had given him, and his blond hair stood on end, waving as if it were being blown about in an invisible, otherworldly wind.  
  
“He’ll turn state witness,” Alfred said. “He’ll testify against Boss Man Feliciano Vargas. Won’t you, Diamond?”  
  
“Absolutely,” Lovino said, fingers on his chest to show that he would cross his heart and hope to die.  
  
“You’re an egotist, Alfred, thinking you can save them,” Arthur said.  
  
“These criminals would take advantage of you if it weren’t for me,” Arthur said.  
  
“You’ll regret it when he’s set free to kill again,” Arthur said.  
  
Arthur had left first. He’d been gone two days and Alfred had been worried sick, and then he’d seen that first fateful afternoon special printing of the news--  
  
SIX DIE DURING TRIAL  
 _The Courtroom Was Like a Morgue, Says One Witness_  
  
\-- apparently Diamond Lovino, Boss Man Feliciano, Boss Man’s two brothers, and two policemen testifying for the defense had dropped dead at the same moment, ostensibly of heart failure but also possibly of a black mist seen zigzagging about the room by a few hysterical witnesses.  
  
And still Arthur didn’t come home to face Alfred’s accusatory music. Apparently Doctor Stonehenge had struck out on his own, to strike at the criminal community without the assistance or approval of his sidekick, his partner, his best friend. So through a veil of hurt and angry tears, Citizen Science packed up his equipment and his clothing and left to find his own secret base.  
  
A couple months later Alfred woke to find the second of the fateful newspapers on his doorstep. That one read:  
  
GOVERNOR COHEN PUSHES ‘ZERO TOLERANCE’ CRIME BILL THROUGH  
 _Emergency Legislative Session Convened After Rumored Attack on Statehouse_  
  
Alfred wanted to snap the newspaper shut, to crumple it, throw it -- to somehow deny what he was reading. But like a preteen with porn he was almost compelled to continue, morbidly interested to see how bad Arthur -- _no, Doctor Stonehenge_ \-- had gotten. How far he’d been willing to go.  
  
 _… feds threaten to send in the army to stop enforcement of the provisions of the bill, which include the mandatory death penalty for non-traffic-related crimes, including misdemeanors such as …  
  
…while the attacks are unconfirmed by law enforcement, one self-described eyewitness, who was later found hiding on capitol grounds, claims that his dead grandparents were among those swarming the government building …_  
  
A cold shudder formed somewhere at the base of Alfred’s brain and banged its way down his spine. The paper shook until the text was blurry. Alfred dropped it onto the table, stilling the quaking of his hands by pressing his palms together and twining his fingers into each other, tight.  
  
 _… This is the church and this is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people!_  
  
Using dead people -- that had been the worst. The absolute worst. Alfred had known he’d have to stop it.  
  
It was one hundred twenty-three hours since then, five days, two of them without a peep from Arthur. He was alive; Alfred had equipment, science, to tell him that. But his continued silence was an annoying shriek in Alfred’s ears.  
  
When Alfred couldn’t bear it any more, he stood in the door of Arthur’s (cell) room and shouted at the bed.  
  
“Get up, Arthur!”  
  
Arthur didn’t move, didn’t respond. He’d given up. He, Arthur, the greatest superhero of them all, unknown until he’d gone bad.  
  
“Argh,” Alfred said. He went in and shook water from an open bottle onto Arthur’s face until Arthur’s nose twitched. Still he didn’t arise, so Alfred sat next to him on the musty, disgusting bed and haul-hugged him up into a sitting position.  
  
“You stink. Drink this.”  
  
Arthur only moaned, so Alfred forced the bottle mouth between Arthur’s lips.  
  
“Drink it or so help me, I’ll strap you to a bed and give you an I.V.”  
  
Arthur made a noise that might have been a _hmph_. But he tilted his head back and Alfred poured. More water went down Arthur’s throat than dribbled down his chin, and Alfred took that as a sign to proceed to the next step. He pulled a foil packet out of his pocket.  
  
“Good. Now eat this Pop-Tart.”  
  
“Nggh,” Arthur said, but when Alfred shoved a chunk between his lips, Arthur chewed. After a few bites he opened his eyes and glared, looking angry but at least more alert, for which Alfred was grateful. He watched Arthur finish the Pop-Tart.  
  
“Now you need a shower,” Alfred said and lifted Arthur to his feet. Arthur tried to go limp, but Alfred hefted him against his chest into a parody of a standing hug. “Don’t think I won’t carry you. When did you become such a pig, Arthur?”  
  
Arthur definitely _hmph_ ed that time. He stumbled partially under his own power to the bathroom, and still Alfred wouldn’t let him go.  
  
“I won’t let you give up. I’ll do whatever I have to, even if you never forgive me,” he said.  
  
He’d always done only what he had to. That final, short battle between them had been as inevitable as death. Alfred had packed a Project and gone to the governor’s mansion.  
  
It was quiet there -- no cars, no guards, no people-- like it was abandoned. But Alfred’s sensor pen told him that there were two people inside the house. And he could feel the dark magic hovering on the edge of his consciousness, primed in Doctor Stonehenge’s fingers and begging to be used.  
  
So he simply walked up to the front door and threw it open, and stood in the hallway with his hands on his hips (a very heroic pose).  
  
“Governor Cohen, sir! I’m Citizen Science. And I’m here to rescue you!”  
  
“Idiot,” a voice hissed from a nearby room. Of course it wasn’t the governor; it was Doctor Stonehenge. He strode into the hallway, alone, to confront Alfred. His dear and familiar face made Alfred’s heart clench in his chest with longing even as his feet quaked in his boots with fear. Arthur certainly looked the part of a supervillain; his cloak and hat seemed to have grown blacker with darkness, making his face and hair appear even more pale.  
  
“You’ve gone too far, Doctor Stonehenge,” Alfred said, straightening his glasses with one hand to distract Arthur from the way he was reaching into his pack with the other.  
  
“Ha! You. You don’t go far enough, _Citizen Science_.” The hateful glare in Arthur’s darkened eyes was more chilling to Alfred than his crime. It was more personal. “You make too many compromises. Too many deals with the devil.”  
  
“You’re the only devil here,” Alfred said.  
  
“And you’ve never been eloquent, Alfred, so please do stop trying to be so now. And stop being afraid! Afraid of exposing who you are and what you can do to the world. I’ve done it, and they cannot hurt me. Come back to me, and I’ll make sure they never hurt you, either.”  
  
“No. You’re coming with me, Arthur,” Alfred said and pulled out his Project.  
  
Arthur’s eyes grew round and he smiled so wide his gums showed. “You’re really going to point one of your silly pistols at me? What is this one?”  
  
“It’s called Project Spellbreaker,” Alfred said and fired, just as Arthur said _Repel!_ And a flash of white light met a flash of sickly yellow--  
  
And Arthur had been too slow. His spell dissipated and … and the magic everywhere dissipated, and Arthur slumped to the floor, staring at his hands.  
  
“What have you done? What did you do to me?”  
  
He was so white and his eyes with such fear and betrayal that Alfred dropped the Spellbreaker and fell to his knees as well. “I’m so sorry, Arthur. God, I’m so sorry--”  
  
“What did you do to me?”  
  
“What the hell is going on around here?” a voice called from somewhere in the mansion, but Alfred ignored the voice and shuffled forward to gather Arthur in his arms, to kiss the tears from his face.  
  
“I’m so sorry. Please forgive me,” he’d told the tears, and he’d kissed Arthur on the lips, and Arthur had kissed him back for a wonderful, lightheaded _at last too late_ moment or two until a violent sob erupted through him, one so terrible that it had jolted their lips apart. Arthur had clutched at the straps of Alfred’s Project-holsters.  
  
“Ki-- kill me, then, Alfred. Please. Oh, God, what have you do-- done--” he’d said, an open-mouthed and pitiable lament that had shredded Alfred’s heart.  
  
Arthur’s few dulled threats on the way home had guaranteed the cuffs, but now it was just Alfred’s fingers encircling Arthur’s wrists, holding them in the air to keep him upright while he turned on the shower. It didn’t matter that they were both still dressed; what mattered was getting Arthur’s dignity back, anything to set him on the path to redemption.  
  
Arthur’s black button-down shirt was open. Alfred watched the spray of warming water as it trickled in droplets down Arthur’s thin chest. He was skinnier than ever.  
  
Alfred looked away, feeling a little like a voyeur to be gaping at Arthur in such vulnerable moments -- even now, he found Arthur fascinating -- and he grabbed a bottle of shampoo. He squeezed a shimmering glop directly onto Arthur’s head, then pulled him by the hair under the spray of water to mash it into suds.  
  
After a couple of moments he realized that Arthur was looking at him.  
  
“Idiot,” Arthur said and wriggled his now-slippery wrists free of Alfred’s grip. He peeled off his wet shirt, watching Alfred as he did it, his eyes large and clear, an untainted green in his thin face.  
  
Then he pulled Alfred’s head down and kissed his wet eyelids, his cheeks, his lips, like Alfred had done to him five days ago except without the tears, though perhaps Alfred was shedding some of those now -- he wasn’t sure, what with the water in his face.  
  
Arthur tasted less salty, anyway, his mouth a little sweet (from the Pop-Tart) and soapy (from the shampoo), the strength in his fingers as they clutched Alfred’s head a little surprising.  
  
“I thought you never wanted this. Me,” Alfred sighed after awhile into Arthur’s warm, exciting mouth.  
  
“Silly goose,” Arthur said. He began to unbutton Alfred’s shirt. He kissed him again, slow and wet and slippery. As the minutes passed the water grew hotter but Alfred began to shudder anyway. He couldn’t believe this was Arthur with him, stodgy old Arthur, who slept with books and dreams drenched in magical history but who had never seemed to acknowledge the physical universe of humans …  
  
Arthur’s wet fingers mapped the sides of Alfred’s ribs, his stomach, the jut of his hips.  
  
“You’ve not been eating enough,” Arthur hissed into Alfred’s ear. Alfred’s eardrum sent chill-signals through his entire body.  
  
“You're worried about _me_?” Alfred managed.  
  
“Perhaps.”  
  
Then Alfred was shoved against the tile by the surprising strength in Arthur’s body, by Arthur’s hand pressing into Alfred’s stomach hard enough to slide beneath the waistband of his jeans, to wrap his fingers in a confident squeeze around Alfred’s cock, which had been throbbingly hard for an embarrassingly long time. Arthur stroked it until Alfred was gasping, choking on the spray of water into his embarrassingly open mouth.  
  
Arthur licked Alfred’s jawline, hard and wide-mouthed. “You seem surprised,” he said, with a little bit of teeth.  
  
“Ah! Maybe I am.”  
  
“Hmm. Your bedroom, Alfred. Mine is malodorous.”  
  
“I’ve -- I’ve always l-- I l--” Alfred tried to say.  
  
“I know, Alfred. I know.” Arthur turned off the shower and yanked Alfred out by the hand, strong like he’d never been languishing in self-pity, like he hadn’t gone without sustenance or fresh air for days, but Alfred didn’t care, was only glad that Arthur was still strong enough without his powers to not die. They dripped their way unerringly to Alfred’s bedroom -- there were only three on this floor, after all, so Arthur could easily have guessed -- and then left their remaining clothing in puddles on Alfred’s nice wooden floors. His bedsheets were soon sticky from the writhing of their wet limbs.  
  
Magic had been banished from the room but the microcosm they built, of just them and their bare skin pressed together, made Alfred feel almost forgiven for taking away Arthur’s choice. Arthur sat up against the headboard and Alfred straddled him, willing to do anything, all the work, to make up for winning. Arthur repaid him by stroking his cock in a steady rhythm that left him at Arthur’s mercy. Where he’d always been, really.  
  
“You’ll need lubricant, Alfred. That should do.”  
  
Arthur had stopped and was pointing at a little red-capped container nestled among a messy row of containers and bottles on the shelf next to them. Alfred’s first thought was _right, it’s a water-based lubricant_ \-- he used it on his projects, but using it on himself wouldn’t hurt. His second thought was that the container was unmarked.  
  
“How’d you know?” Alfred said, pulling the container off the shelf. “You never paid any attention to my stuff.”  
  
“It’s you who doesn’t pay attention to anything, love,” Arthur accused, but that _love_ took the sting of the insult away. Alfred handed over the bottle.  
  
Arthur fondled lubricant into Alfred’s ass with his long fingers, his long, wonderful fingers that had always drawn such beautiful spells into the air. They guided Alfred’s hips down as he slowly, slowly sank his cock into Alfred's body. They caressed Alfred’s burning face with infinitely cosmic patience.  
  
“Ahh. Good, Alfred, good,” Arthur whispered and licked Alfred’s chest when he sat, at last, on Arthur’s thighs. Never had Alfred had so much of Arthur’s approval. He shifted his hips and so did Arthur, tiny thrusts that learned Alfred’s impromptu rhythm as he created it over the space of the next few minutes.  
  
They did make a great team as they moved together, a well-assembled machine, a Project. Alfred’s knees were the gear-arms, working his ass up and down onto Arthur’s pistoning hips.  
  
Arthur’s wonderful fingers continued their magic, stroking Alfred’s cock until his bones froze with pleasure and he snapped. He shuddered into orgasm, clenching around Arthur’s cock inside him, messy all over Arthur's sweat-filmed stomach. The harsh release broke his gears, and his thighs shuddered to a halt.  
  
Arthur smiled a little. He squeezed Alfred’s shoulders. “I always knew you would lack control, Alfred,” he said.  
  
Alfred wondered if it was possible to die from burning cheeks. Arthur was equally flushed, so he supposed not. “Oh, did ya?” he said, climbing off and trying to make it sound like a joke.  
  
“Yes, you young fool,” Arthur said, but erased any true accusation by kissing Alfred softly and with lots of swirling, embarrassment-melting tongue.  
  
“But I’ve also often admired your perseverance and bravado,” he added, after a bit. “Come! Onto your knees, and I shall show you mine.”  
  
Alfred wondered how he’d feared, only an hour previously, that Arthur was giving up on life, on everything. But then, their relationship had utterly changed in the space of that hour. Anything could happen. Project Anonymous could happen.  
  
“Sure thing, Professor,” Alfred said, using an old nickname. He rolled to his knees, obedience restored along with his bravado and feeling greedy as an addict. He wanted to learn; he wanted to hear more about his own good qualities. He wanted to know how much Arthur wanted him.  
  
“There, good,” Arthur said, and instructed by grabbing Alfred’s thighs and holding him tight and still. It seemed he wanted Alfred quickly, for he wasted few seconds before thrusting inside him, hard. From this angle he could give it to Alfred deep and fast, knocking the greedy thoughts right out of Alfred’s brain with professor-like precision. Arthur's small, sharp moans of gratification, repeated like counting out the minutes, were plenty approbation.  
  
When Alfred’s cock pulsed to hardness again, Arthur slowed his thrusts bit by bit into a rocking rhythm, winding Alfred’s hips into circles with his strong fingers until Alfred was gasping and drooling into his pillow.  
  
“Yes, Alfred, my Alfred,” Arthur panted into Alfred’s hair. Alfred hadn’t known it was possible to get so close as this; Arthur pressed against him from their thighs to his chest on Alfred’s back, all of them slippery and sticky. He twined his fingers into Alfred’s on the bedsheets until they gripped in unison, until Alfred wasn’t sure what parts of him weren’t Arthur. It was perfect, what Alfred had wanted from almost the moment they’d met.  
  
 _I’m Citizen Science and I know who you are. Can I join you?_ he’d said, proudly displaying the Project that had bypassed all the doors into Doctor Stonehenge’s lair.  
  
 _May you_ , Arthur had said and zapped Alfred’s smugness by showing him how to pick locks using only the dexterity of one’s fingers and a toothpick--  
  
“Ah! Alfred -- so close. Think you can match me this time, love?” Arthur whispered, hot in Alfred’s ear. And Alfred said _yes_ and let the human machinery of his body roll and match the accelerating pound of Arthur’s cock inside him, fierce thrusts punctuated by Arthur’s _hah … hahs_. Arthur again fondled Alfred’s oversensitized cock, swirling his thumb around the tip like the Alfred-expert he was.  
  
“Oh-- Oh, God,” Alfred gasped as his testicles clenched and he came again, harder than before, just as Arthur moaned _yes, yes_ at him and jerked a few final, arrhythmic thrusts.  
  
Alfred tumbled face-down into his drool-covered pillow. Arthur lay atop him, petting his head and still whispering _yes, yes_.  
  
After a minute or two, Arthur chuckled.  
  
“Thank you, Alfred. For everything,” he said. He rolled off Alfred’s body to lay at his side, still stroking Alfred’s hair.  
  
Alfred was floating in a post-coital haze, so it took a moment or two for that strangeness to sink in. He rolled to his side as well, facing Arthur. Arthur was smiling.  
  
“Did you say thank you?”  
  
His disquiet must have showed on his face because Arthur rubbed between Alfred’s eyebrow with his index finger, as if smoothing out a worry line.  
  
“Yes. Thank you. For Project Anonymous. You’ll leave your notebook lying out any old place, won’t you?”  
  
He pulled his finger away. It was glowing.  
  
“Oh, shit,” Alfred said and tensed to jump, to escape. His limbs wouldn’t move. “Oh, shit,” he said again.  
  
“Don’t worry, Alfred. I’m not going to hurt you.” Arthur rolled off the bed. He walked over to Alfred’s closet and began digging through it, inspecting and discarding items of clothing as if he had all the time in the world. Finally he chose a pair of Alfred’s best jeans and stepped into them. “I also won’t insult you by describing how I acquired it.”  
  
“No,” Alfred said, agreeing. Who’d taught him to pick locks without science, after all? And … that time he’d found Arthur in the hallway, a couple of days ago -- he had locked the door after all. Dammit.  
  
“Eventually I want you to join me again,” Arthur said, stretching his arms into one of Alfred’s nicest black tee-shirts. “Don’t suppose you’ll do so now?”  
  
“No,” Alfred repeated, watching as Arthur next snatched a belt from the dresser and used it to hold up his too-large jeans.  
  
“Ah. Well, this is goodbye for now, then, love.” Dressed, he leaned over to kiss Alfred on the nose. “We’ll see who realizes the error of their ways first, shall we, Citizen Science?”  
  
“I’ll only have to stop you again, Doctor Stonehenge,” Alfred grated out.  
  
Arthur merely laughed as he walked down the hallway. Alfred heard the front door open, then shut.  
  
“Hah,” he said, and then “duh.” Then he lay there and waited for the magic to wear off. Some of it might not ever, he suspected.  
  
  
 **END**  
  
 _Thank you for reading! Concrit and comments are always loved and appreciated! / begging_


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